Lisbon, Aug. 28, 2025 (Lisboa) - The Constitutional Court rejected a second attempt by the Competition Authority (AdC) in the case known as the “banking cartel” to reverse the cancellation of €225 million fines against the banks.

In a ruling dated 25 August, to which Lusa has had access, the Constitutional Court (TC) rejects the competition regulator's complaint regarding the fact that, in June, Judge-Counsellor Afonso Patrão acknowledged the appeal submitted by the AdC to assess the constitutionality of the case.

With this second decision, the TC definitively refuses to assess whether the judgment of the Lisbon Court of Appeal (TRL), which declared the case time-barred, complies with the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic and European Union (EU) law.

The litigation has now come to an end with this ruling, making the TRL decision that declared the statute of limitations and cancelled the fines for the 11 banks condemned by the Competition Court final and unappealable.

For the Constitutional Court, the question of unconstitutionality raised by the AdC "is not of a normative nature, and therefore the concrete review of constitutionality is invalid".

According to the ruling, the court understands that the AdC did not ask it "to interpret the Constitution in line with European Union law", but rather to analyse "the alleged non-conformity of the interpretation followed by the court a quo [Lisbon Court of Appeal] with European Union law in a problem of unconstitutionality with reference, on the one hand, to the value that the Constitution attributes to EU law and, on the other, to the jurisdictional effectiveness of EU law". It was therefore decided not to analyse the decision taken by the Appeal Court.

PCT/ADB // ADB.

Lusa